Less than a month after a failed attempt to stop the Sentinel Ridge project, Mesa Road residents will battle another, smaller development proposal at the City Planning
Commission meeting Thursday, March 19.
Called Horizon View, the plan calls for a five-lot subdivision.
Developer William Guman proposes to demolish an existing house and storage building on the five-acre parcel at 1635 Mesa Road. The lots would be created on the
two buildable acres of the property, around a private cul de sac that would be built off Mesa. The other three acres fall away to the east next to Sondermann Park.
City Planner James Mayerl has given administrative approval of the development, which has been in review for about a year. There previously had been city issues
regarding utility lines and a geologic hazard report, but these are “now acceptable,” he said.
The proposal is going to Planning Commission because the Mesa Neighborhood Association has filed a formal appeal of Mayerl's approval “on the grounds that the
development is not compatible or harmonious with the surrounding properties” and does not comply with several legal city documents, including the city
Comprehensive Plan and the Mesa Springs Community Plan.
According to plans, the density would be within that allowed on the property by its R/HS (Estate, Single-Family Residential with Hillside Area Overlay) zone. This
zone also applies to other Mesa Road properties nearby on which there are homes.
Lot sizes would range between 20,000 and 32,000 square feet, with a potential height of 25 to 30 feet.
According to the appeal, no lots in that area are as small as 20,000 square feet; also, existing homes in that area are one-story, set back farther from the road, and
they “complement the open space and rural character of this section of Mesa Road,” the appeal states.
“The intent of this project is to provide quality residential estate lots along the Mesa Road corridor,” Guman explained in a document to the city in March 2008.
In February, a consortium of Mesa neighborhoods had unsuccessfully appealed Planning Commission's approval of Sentinel Ridge-West, an 88-home subdivision on
28 acres off Mesa Road and Fillmore Street. The overriding concern in that case had also been the diminishment of the Mesa Road residents' way of life.